


Laughter in Restraint

by ponderinfrustration



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 11:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9383300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderinfrustration/pseuds/ponderinfrustration
Summary: Christine contemplates Erik, and the nature of his laugh.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt from solvirrosiv, who requested Agelast - A person who never laughs.

It is almost endearing, the way he restrains himself. It is not that he has no _desire_ to laugh, because she can see it occasionally dancing in his eyes, especially when she says something bordering on the ridiculous. Sometimes he looks at her with his eyes like that and she wonders what it is that he finds so amusing. How she’s dressed? How she looks? Her voice? Or is it (and the question is one that she firmly keeps to herself) that he is amused that she has chosen _him_ , that she has learned to love _him_.

(She _has_ learned to love him. There is no doubt of that. She feels it in the fluttering of her heart, in the way that her lips twitch when her eyes fall on him. She thought it impossible, once, that she could ever feel such feelings for him, but now she twines her fingers with his and has no doubt of it.)

Still, his laugh is rare. And by virtue of its very rarity it is infinitely precious. When he laughs his breathy, high laugh that sounds as if it could never come from someone like him, he always has that look on his face, as if he is surprised that he can make such a sound. She is not surprised, and she kisses him afterwards, his lips soft beneath hers, still hesitant after all of this time. She kisses him, and leans into him, and whispers that she loves him, and his lips twitch into a smile.

Yes. For all that Erik is one who (almost) never laughs, each memory of him laughing is one that she cradles close to her, for to keep forever.


End file.
